"You read the Life of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria instead of grumbling at other people for doing so, and maybe you'll find out," said Hemingway. "Your Uncle Joseph read it - all of it, which is more than he allowed his wife to do. Where is she, sir?"
"In the drawing-room. Miss Clare's with her. Was the Empress murdered, then?"
"I'm not going to spoil the story for you," said the Inspector firmly. "Besides, I haven't time. You'll find it all in the encyclopedia."
"Damn you!" Stephen said, and took him to the drawing-room.
When she saw the Inspector, Maud looked steadily at him, her hands folded in her lap, her face quite expressionless. Mathilda moved instinctively to her side, but when the Inspector told her briefly, but as gently as he could, that her husband was under arrest, she showed no sign of agitation. For a moment she did not speak. Then she said: "I did not see how Joseph could have done it."
Taken aback, Mathilda exclaimed: "You thought he might have?"
"Oh yes!" Maud replied matter-of-factly. "You see, I have lived with Joseph for nearly thirty years. You none of you understood him."
Mathilda looked at her in blank astonishment. "Didn't you - didn't you like him?" she asked.
"I liked him when I married him, naturally," Maud answered. "I have disliked him very much for many years now, however."
"Yet you went on living with him!"